October 24, 2005: The war in Iraq took a decisive, and obvious, turn, when terrorists proved unable to mount much of a campaign to interfere with the October 15 voting. The last round of voting was last January 30th, and much more damage was done (299 attacks, 108 directly at polling places, with 30 deaths.) On October 15th, there were only 89 attacks, 19 on polling places, and only ten deaths (only three of them civilians.) While some say the terrorists were going to ease up attacks on October 15th, so that Sunni Arabs could turn out in large numbers to defeat the new constitution, this was not the case. Police halted dozens of attacks, and found large quantities of bombs, weapons and bomb workshops in September and early October. The main reason for the terrorist failure was the growing number of Iraqi police (106,000 in October, versus 79,000 in January) and soldiers (93,000 in October, versus 56,000 in January). The security forces were better trained in October, and had more experience. This process freed up more American troops for offensive operations, which has been doing major damage to terrorist “base areas” in Sunni Arab territory. Captured documents, and eavesdropping on terrorist electronic communications (phones, email, radio), show increased concern by the enemy about the American attacks, and the growing presence of Iraqi police. Opinion polls continue to show enthusiasm for the terrorists falling in Sunni Arab areas (the killers were never well liked in Shia Arab and Kurdish areas.)